Focusing on Virginia Woolf and her circle, past and present

Woolf sightings: The Bloomsbury Festival and more

The Bloomsbury Festival is one of the most interesting Woolf sighting this week. It will include readings from emerging and established writers; Cream Tea and Conversation, a celebratory talk on Persephone Book’s 100th publication; and a sold-out session on Bloomsbury and Film, with reference to Virginia. See #9 below, then read on.

The Best of Bestowing, Harvard Magazine
At her first Christmas back from college, her mother gave her the first volume of Virginia Woolf’s letters. “I remember unwrapping it and going upstairs into the bedroom and being under blankets the whole day reading,” Paulsell says. She still reads …

The Rabble’s Orlando. Photo: Sarah Walker, Sydney Morning Herald
PLAYING with gender is a traditional prerogative of the theatre, and The Rabble’s superb adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando is an erotic and funny, alarming and profound interrogation of the subject. The theatrical mavericks have created a visceral…

Creativity a Symptom of Mental Illness?, Everyday Health
Fans of Virginia Woolf know that the author — who killed herself — was frequently depressed. A new study from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute suggests that an artist’s creativity may be linked to his or her mental illness. The brightest and most …

Preview: The Bloomsbury Festival, Londonist
As you might expect from the home of Virginia Woolf and co, literary types will be well catered for with readings from emerging and established writers. Look out for Cream Tea and Conversation, a celebratory talk on Persephone Book’s 100th publication …

Bridget Christie, The Riverfront,, South Wales Argus
Instead, we had her thoughts about how women are currently portrayed, the lack of Virginia Woolfand Mary Wollstonecraft in her local book store, and 18-year-olds on TOWIE who Botox their faces before a quiz night. “Misogyny and shiny leggings are …

Review: Orlando, Melbourne Festival, Herald Sun
WRITTEN as a love missive to poet Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf’s romantic novel Orlando tells the fantastical tale of a young courtier to Queen Elizabeth I who decides to stop ageing and then lives through three centuries, firstly as a man then …

A Short Defense of Literary Excess, New York Times (blog)
And who can be indifferent to the impressionistic metaphoricity of Virginia Woolf’sprose, where things “quiver,” “tremble” “melt” and “overflow,” constantly threatening to exceed themselves? Take Woolf’s depiction of one of Clarissa Dalloway’s lucid …

Rabble rouses Woolf for an assault on the senses, The Australian
“How dull indecency is,” wrote Virginia Woolf in the mid-1920s, “when it is not the overflowing of a superabundant energy or savagery.” One could hardly find a more apt phrase to describe the Rabble’s recent output than the latter part of Woolf’s …

Turkish Nobelist, kin to Faulkner, Philadelphia Inquirer
Even as a young man, Pamuk – who is 60 years old – was impressed by Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner. Like those novelists he writes in stream-of-consciousness style: He portrays an individual’s point of view by depicting that character’s thought …

Not everyone loves the countryside!, Sussex Express
(Phillimore): ‘Solitary walking in the afternoon for its own sake had an indisputable role in Virginia Woolf’s writing. She would compose sentences, collect thoughts and toss ideas about for her present and future writings, catching them “hot and …

Toby’s Room by Pat Barker: Review, Toronto Star
The novel’s title appears to be a self-conscious reference to Virginia Woolf’s 1922 novel Jacob’s Room. That novel’s “protagonist”—based on Woolf’s brother Thoby, who died of typhoid at 26—was largely absent, Woolf’s strategy being to build a notion …

New York Film Festival 2012: Ginger & Rosa, slantmagazine
Like Orlando, her adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s centuries-spanning novel which established her name internationally 20 years ago, there’s a strong female protagonist through whose POV the movie unfolds. We sense a deep personal involvement in the…

Murder and drama in the Lakes, The Guardian (blog)
capacity to appreciate and admire generously the work of authors very different from himself. He held in the highest esteem, for instance, the novels of Mr James Joyce and Mrs Woolf. Virginia Woolf was indeed a great friend and regular correspondent of…

2012 Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, Foodepedia
So said Virginia Woolf, and who am I to argue? If I were feeling particularly daring though, I might add one more thing to her list. Reading well also requires appropriate nourishment, making food a particularly important part of enjoying the 2012 …

What are the five best books about London?, Telegraph.co.ukVirginia Woolf’s reportage collected in just 95 pages of The London Scene (Snowbooks) captures just one moment in London time – 1931 – but does so exquisitely. Graphic novel From Hell (Knockabout) is a retelling of the Jack the Ripper murders by Alan …

Au Naturaw Opens in Downtown Santa Ana, OC Weekly (blog)
Also on the website are Virginia Woolf and Shakespeare quotes, a photo of a happy goat in a garden and a snapshot of Marchell Williams, the owner and chef. It should also be mentioned that Williams appears to have made a comment a few months ago on …

Mabeyn Gallery hosts Gözonar’s show, Hurriyet Daily News
Her current work uses the words of Marilyn Monroe, Che Guevara and Virginia Woolfto link them with ordinary people. You will be surprised by what you see, and that’s exactly what Gözonar’s “Way” is about. October/09/2012. PRINTER FRIENDLY …

The Godfather of Nyama Choma – Francis Wahome, AllAfrica.com
opinion. British novelist Virginia Woolf is quoted saying, “one cannot think well, love well, and sleep well, if one has not dined well.” ‘Dining well’ is the feeling one gets while digging into scrumptious nyama choma, ugali, and spinach at Francis …

‘All We Know: Three Lives,’ by Lisa Cohen, New York Times
Todd and Garland published Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant and other Bloomsbury figures. Woolf associated the couple, Cohen writes, with “the knot of art, commerce and sexuality that haunts and defines both modernism and fashion.” The golden moment …

A Painting Opportunity, Daily Beast
More than just the title of Pat Barker’s new novel is reminiscent of Virginia Woolf’s 1922 novel Jacob’s Room. Woolf wrote her third novel in memory of her brother Thoby, who died at age 26 in 1906, and so too Barker’s novel is about a sister mourning …

The Godfather of Nyama Choma – Francis Wahome, AllAfrica.com
opinion. British novelist Virginia Woolf is quoted saying, “one cannot think well, love well, and sleep well, if one has not dined well.” ‘Dining well’ is the feeling one gets while digging into scrumptious nyama choma, ugali, and spinach at Francis …

A Review of ‘Vita and Virginia,’ at Luna Stage, New York TimesIn Act II of Eileen Atkins’s intelligent and resonant “Vita and Virginia,” now playing at Luna Stage, Woolf (Mona Hennessy) discovers that her lover Vita Sackville-West (Rachel Black Spaulding) has been seen “lunching at the Cafe Royal” with another …